{"id":4625,"date":"2015-05-31T07:59:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T07:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=4625"},"modified":"2015-05-31T18:40:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T18:40:23","slug":"science-culture-and-all-that-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2015\/05\/31\/science-culture-and-all-that-jazz\/","title":{"rendered":"Science, Culture and All That Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

People seem to think that science and culture are two different things. Just as Stefan Collini<\/a>, in his 2012 book \u2018What are Universities for?<\/a> <\/em>\u2019 constantly referred to scientists and scholars, as if scientists were unable to join the (implied elite) club of scholars, culture as usually considered consists of things like music, art, poetry and literature\u2013 but not science. Why? Why this artificial distinction (which I highlighted before<\/a>) which, if you go down the well-worked Two Cultures route suggests that science\/technology may have its own culture but it is \u2018other\u2019. It really is time that we recognized learning is learning, with many hues, styles and flavours, but that all academics are in the business of scholarship, of making the world a better place and being creative together.<\/p>\n

How is culture defined? Having just read Matthew Arnold<\/a>\u2019s Culture and Anarchy<\/a><\/em> I wouldn\u2019t turn there for a helpful definition in the modern world, however ground-breaking the book may have been upon its appearance in 1869. Arnold was determined to prove that the classical Hellenic world had it all right and those of us steeped in what he calls \u2018machinery\u2019 have it all wrong, although by machinery he doesn\u2019t mean a vacuum cleaner or car, or even \u2013 to be less anachronistic – a powerloom or steam engine. He means the machinery of doing something, be it challenging the law (he was very worked up about the disestablishment of the Irish Church and that \u2018annual blister, marriage with deceased wife\u2019s sister) or improving the lot of the poor (The Populace in his language). But let me not dwell on this seminal but, at least to my mind, outmoded and ill-argued book to make sense of culture.<\/p>\n

It was Melvyn Bragg<\/a>, on his Radio 4 programme In Our Time,<\/a> who introduced Arnold\u2019s book to me, through his series about Culture <\/a>broadcast in 2012. And Melvyn Bragg it is who has indirectly just brought back to my mind the artificial division between culture and science by inviting me back onto that wonderful, broad, intellectual programme he chairs. Along with the historian of science, Jim Bennett<\/a>, and the UCL chemist Paul McMillan<\/a>, we discussed the Science of Glass <\/a>this week. This was a programme that I would like to think I had stimulated in some small part when I previously took part in the programme covering the topic of States of Matter. After that earlier programme I mourned the fact the topic was too large to do justice to all the intriguing but less than conventional states and, in particular, that we had never touched on glasses at all. Indeed I wrote to the producer to say this. So in this programme we did. What I really liked about the line-up was that this time, unlike on my previous two appearances, we were not three scientists. Jim\u2019s presence meant we had a broader view of things, particularly with regard to the historical context in which glass has been developed and utilised.<\/p>\n

Such public dialogue between those with very different takes on a specific subject, are all too rare. Indeed, space and opportunity for such a public dialogue to occur are also all too rare. There is a tendency to ghetto-ise disciplines: Science Festivals and Literary Festivals do not usually co-mingle (although the Hay Festival does include a good line up of scientists) and speakers from one background may either lack confidence to speak in other arenas and\/or may not get invited. This is not healthy.<\/p>\n

If culture is to mean anything it should mean \u2018the best that has been thought and known\u2019<\/em> as Arnold would have it, but without taking a large part of our knowledge and implicitly saying that since it\u2019s science it can\u2019t count as culture, even if it has been \u2018thought and known\u2019. Why do we artificially divide the world so that it isn\u2019t common to wish to be competent (I\u2019m not aiming for a higher goal of expertise) in more than one sphere? Of course there are notable and visible exceptions, someone like Jonathan Miller<\/a>, for instance. But scientists too often are diffident ( admittedly sometimes with good reason) about expressing their views about topics beyond their own specific fields. Yet why shouldn\u2019t scientists express interest and knowledge about books or music, at least in a lay sense? Scientists are not Philistines (a word that, in this context, is also down to Arnold I believe) and their opinions are worth hearing. If music (jazz, perhaps, hence the title of this post) inspires them to be creative in their science, can they articulate why? And if science inspires artists, that too should be a cause for celebration. As examples of this latter I would cite the dress<\/a> Matthew Hubble<\/a> designed for the Nobel Prize winner May Britt Moser<\/a>, or the Wonderland<\/a> collaboration between fashion designer Helen Storey<\/a> and chemist Tony Ryan<\/a> .<\/p>\n

The media doesn\u2019t do much to facilitate such dialogue across this apparent divide. I fear this is because by and large the media is dominated by non-scientists who seem to feel science is \u2018difficult\u2019 and can\u2019t be incorporated into programmes in general, but has to be hived off into programmes labelled SCIENCE in metaphorically large letters, so that people who don\u2019t want accidentally to be introduced to any can safely avoid being tainted by this dangerous concept. I exaggerate, but nevertheless we have programming on TV and then we have science programmes. However excellent these programmes may be there is the danger of reinforcing the prejudice that science is \u2018other\u2019 by operating in this way.<\/p>\n

Some of the problem may lie in the distinction that isn\u2019t always made between Public Engagement with Science and Public Understanding of Science. The latter \u2013 perhaps involving talking heads standing up at a science festival expounding excitedly about some gee-whizz discovery, probably their own \u2013 is important. Facts are sacred and should be transmitted. But the engagement side is also important; not in the sense of getting one\u2019s hands dirty with demos, but in the sense of actively finding out about developing ideas and, if need be, then questioning what is going on. Hilary Sutcliffe<\/a>, for one (and I\u2019m sure there are many others) gets exercised<\/a> when someone implies that only scientists should be allowed to comment on science. And she is right. When it comes to issues such as the ever-bubbling discussion over GMO\u2019s or the recent exemplary consultations over \u20183 parent babies\u2019, the voice of more than just scientists must be heard in a democracy. But if the only time such interactions occur are when there is a danger of polarisation of views (e.g. implicitly assuming that scientists are pro some new technology, the rest of the world against) then it won\u2019t be helpful. The dialogue should be ongoing and properly integrated so that it is just people talking about things that interest or affect them.<\/p>\n

Culture needs to incorporate all the best things that have been thought and written, including science. Not what Arnold meant, but it should be our aspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People seem to think that science and culture are two different things. Just as Stefan Collini, in his 2012 book \u2018What are Universities for? \u2019 constantly referred to scientists and scholars, as if scientists were unable to join the (implied … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,5],"tags":[902,775,620],"class_list":["post-4625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communicating-science","category-science-culture","tag-matthew-arnold","tag-melvyn-bragg","tag-two-cultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}